Polls: Which book has the best interludes, epigraphs, flashbacks?

[Elegy]

So there's a bunch of "traditions" with Stormlight books. And I'd like to know: Which book is your favorite in each discipline?

Some reminders what you’re voting for, in case you forgot some of these . . . 

Interludes:
Way of Kings: Szeth as main interlude character, Rysn in Shinovar, Axies the Collector, Ishikk at the Purelake, etc.
Words of Radiance: Eshonai as the main interlude character, Rysn visiting the Reshi islands, Lift’s interlude, Taravangian’s first interlude, etc.
Oathbringer: Venli as main interlude character, Rysn defending the vault, Kaza’s interlude in Aimia, Teft’s alcohol problems, etc.
Rhythm of War: Taravangian as main interlude character, Chiri-Chiri, Syl, Sja-anat, etc. (you probably remember most of these)

Epigraphs:
Way of Kings: Death Rattles, Hoid’s letter to Frost, Jasnah’s Notes about Voidbringers, The Way of Kings
Words of Radiance: Navani’s Journal, Listener Songs, Words of Radiance, Frost’s letter to Hoid, The Diagram
Oathbringer: Oathbringer, letters from Endowment & Autonomy & Harmony, Gemstone Archive, Hessi’s Mystica about the Unmade, Dawnchant & The Way of Kings post-script
Rhythm of War:  Navani’s Fabrial Lecture, Harmony’s letter to Hoid, Rhythm of War, Kalak’s Journal, El’s Musings

I might do a follow-up with Prologues, Epilogues and Wit stories. The site only allows 3 polls per thread, so this has to do for now.

My picks are:

Interludes: Words of Radiance. It has so many small beautiful stories. Eshonai's recurring interludes aren't my favorites (those would be Szeth), but there are so many iconic chapters among the other ones. Taravangian's first POV ever introduces his curse and boon, Szeth's interlude in Urithiru is just epic. Ym is my favorite one-off interlude character (rest in peace, he'd been right at home in Urithiru . . . sigh.) Rysn visiting the Reshi islands is still my favorite Rysn interlude by a long shot. Also, Lift's interlude is the longest ever, it's a good bit longer than a few Cosmere short stories (like The Eleventh Metal and The Hope of Elantris) and is so well-done.

Epigraphs: Oathbringer. Everyone of them is great. The three letters are my favorite epigraphs ever. The Autonomy section in particular is making me excited and giving me headaches to this day. The Gemstone Archive has a lot of bits about the False Desolation and also some emotional moments ("I'm going to miss that"). Unmade lore is always great . . . and the fact that Part 5 changes from one book a another at the decisive moment in the story has such a neat additional effect. I just love it, in my opinion these will be hard to ever surpass!

Flashbacks: Oathbringer (Dalinar): Well, I guess this is the easy one of them, but I still like the Kaladin flashbacks a lot. Dalinar's backstory just has such a wide range of emotions. Some scenes are badass, some are terrifying, other ones are heart-breaking. The perfect combination of everything, and Jasnah reading The Way of Kings to Dalinar is one of my favorite Stormlight moments to this day.

So what do you think? 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Elegy
I added links to the Coppermind.

[Shob the Voidbringer]

i said RoW for interludes, because i'm not the most into cosmere wide stuff right now, and i am pretty new to stormlight altogether, so i like it when all or almost all the interludes directly correspond to the plot. my opinion may change after a few rereads, and reading other cosmere books

[Elegy]

2 hours ago, Shob the Voidbringer said:

i said RoW for interludes, because i'm not the most into cosmere wide stuff right now, and i am pretty new to stormlight altogether, so i like it when all or almost all the interludes directly correspond to the plot. my opinion may change after a few rereads, and reading other cosmere books

Yeah, I get that. Most of the interludes of the first 3 books don't tie into the larger Cosmere though, so I doubt that your perspective on them will change drastically. They're mostly just little pieces of world-building to get you into Roshar and show you some places that the books won't get to show you for a while. Without thinking much about it, I can only think of two heavily Cosmere-related interludes in total.

I view the interludes (of the first 3 books, at least) basically as short story collections, each broken into four chunks. And looking at it that way, I think the Words of Radiance short story collection is fantastic 

[Dreamwa1ker]

I had to pick RoW for the epigraphs solely because of Harmony's letter. I'm still reeling from those. FOUR Shards. My jaw dropped.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Dreamwa1ker

[Honorless]

I have lots of interludes I like, guess I'll have to pit them against one another by book. WoK had Szeth the Assassin in White, Axies the Collector, Ishikk the Purelaker, Baxil & Av with Shalash talking about the Nightwatcher, Geranid & Ashir the experimenters, Rysn in Shinovar, Nan Balat; WoR had Eshonai the Listener, Rysn in Reshi Isles, Taravangian Boon/Bane testing and the Diagram, Ym and Lift, Zahel and Taln, Szeth in Urithiru, Lhan and Pai in Kholinar; Oathbringer had Venli and the Fused, Ellista the Ardent reading steamy romance, Kaza the Soulcaster trying to reach Aimia, Sheler and the Herdazian General, Teft the addict and Taravangian plotting, Puuli the Lighthouse Keeper looking at the Origin, Mem washerwoman of Mraize where we hear of Aethers and see Shalash again; RoW had Taravangian, Sja-Anat and Syl, Lift's Boon/Bane, Hesina talking to Lirin, and Adin... It is extraordinarily difficult to pick a favourite... WoR or WoK... okay, I choose WoK simply because of how I felt when I reached the interludes while I was reading that book. It felt like a beautiful vacation across Roshar.

Best epigraphs go to Mistborn original trilogy, hands down. If I had to choose from Stormlight then Hessi's Mythica, the letters and the Urithiru Gemstone archives ensures Oathbringer a win. Not that the rest of them are far behind. The letters in all the books were great and RoW in particular was heart-stopping. All the eponymous in-world books are beautiful too, but the way the Way of Kings fits in Oathbringer (both in-world Oathbringer and the Stormlight book) also gives another point to OB. WoR's info on the Radiants was delicious and the Death Rattles from WoK are epic too.

Flashbacks comes down to Kaladin and Dalinar. I like Kaladin better, though Dalinar's flashbacks were absolute backbone of Oathbringer and crucial to its conclusion. I'm still choosing Kaladin.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Honorless

[AquaRegia]

I feel bad that I have not responded to this amazing set of questions yet... and I STILL can't LOL.  It's just too big a project, and we may need to learn more before we truly understand how awesome a given Interlude or set of Epilogues is.  It will take me at least a week or two to go over all the material and make intelligent arguments for my choices.  So kudos for a great topic, but I'm just not ready to dive in yet.

9 hours ago, Honorless said:

Oathbringer ...  Sheler and the Herdazian General

One small clarification: I think we can be confident that this Interlude was, in fact, the first appearance of The Mink.  Are we agreed?

[+Child of Hodor]

Epigraphs: Way of Kings

The Death Rattles put Way of Kings Epigraphs over the top for me. They are full of foreshadowing while being creepy and evocative.   I like all the letters Wit sends and receives about the same so that's a push.  I like Jasnah's WoK research notes a lot because they are about lore. Hanging out in a GIANT ancient library studying the deep lore is paradise to me. 

Dalinar's rambling Oathbringer forward fits with a guy who just learned how to write, but don't really say anything and take forever to say it. Navani's Fabrial + Metallic Arts in RoW were hard to follow because I haven't studied the metallic arts charts in a while. I was like "I'll need to wait until someone writes these down on coppermind so I can read them all at once and have a second window open to the allomancy chart". Contrast that with other epigraphs about lore like the Listener songs, the Eila Steele or Hessi's Mythica. 

Interludes: Way of Kings

As Rod Stewart sang "the first cut is the deepest". Perhaps some primacy bias here, but I love these the most. We knew nothing about this world going in and these interludes show people all over the place doing things with little connection to what's happening on the Shattered Plains. They serve as their stated purpose as a pallet cleanser between parts.  Axies is still one of my favorite interludes. It has funny dialogue and at the end we see he's in a city of people with metallic gold skin then we see that bizarre giant spren. Baxil and his mistress is another great weird one with a secret herald and lore on the Nightwatcher. 

Flashbacks: Oathbringer

Seeing key moments in the life of a man in his fifties was a great break from reading about how awful a teenager's childhood was. "Can I ever be forgiven?" is gutting every time. I like Shallan's second best, again similar subject matter to Kaladin's, but I felt hers were less repetitive and they were Lirin free.  WoK next, Lirin is unbearable and Tien came across more as a personification of innocence than an actual person who was very innocent. 

RoW 4th. His experiment of killing off a flashback character we barely knew 2 books before her flashbacks didn't fully work which is why he felt the need to make them a hybrid of the Eshonai and Venli, another character we didn't know very well. Venli's PoVs in RoW seem to serve more as a way to see more Raboniel when Raboniel is not with Navani than anything. Because she's probably 4th billing as a main character in this book (behind Navani, Raboniel and Kaladin) the flashbacks lack the resonance with what's going on with the character inthe present that the others had. I was touched by their struggles to care for their mother suffering from something like dementia, but again, that serves more to underscore what's going on with Raboniel and her daughter. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Child of Hodor

[LuckyJim]

I think Rhythm of War easily had the best epigraphs for how they tied into the various elements of the story.

You've got Navani's lecture setting up the scientific focus of the book and getting us to start looking at how the fundamental elements of Cosmere magic are linked.

There's Harmony's letter, which focuses on the nature of the relationship between shard and vessel, and hypes up Odium's new vessel before we even see Taravangian ascend.

The Rhythm of War, which gives some insight on the potential relationship between humans and singers, as we see Navani and Raboniel begin to develop warlight. 

Kalak's journal entries, giving us insight to his character as he's introduced in the story, while also informing us that if Shallan goes along with Mraize she will actually kill him.

And most of all, El's musings, providing a chilling sense of "wrongness" even as we see Kaladin overcome his trauma. Reading "And so I am not at all dissatisfied with recent events" even as the occupation is falling away is terrifying, and seeing that El is excited to serve Taravangian really shows how dangerous he's going to be.

[Honorless]

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

One small clarification: I think we can be confident that this Interlude was, in fact, the first appearance of The Mink.  Are we agreed?

Yup. A lot of people got confused with that interlude, wondering what the Hog was and who Sheler was. It was one of the more mysterious interludes as well as one that connected to multiple plot-points and worldbuilding, like Baxil and Mem's interludes. Anyhoo, that was indeed the awesome debut of the Mink.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Honorless

[Shob the Voidbringer]

i'm sad cuz my uncle borrowed the first 3 books when i got RoW, so i can't reread them, and on top of that, i didn't pay attention to the epigraphs until RoW, when i realized that the letters to/from hoid that the coppermind mentions where in the epigraphs.

[Elegy]

Thanks to you all for voting and commenting! 

1 hour ago, Shob the Voidbringer said:

i'm sad cuz my uncle borrowed the first 3 books when i got RoW, so i can't reread them, and on top of that, i didn't pay attention to the epigraphs until RoW, when i realized that the letters to/from hoid that the coppermind mentions where in the epigraphs.

You can read the epigraphs on the Coppermind - every book has its own epigraph page. Here's the overview.

[Shob the Voidbringer]

thanks, thats really helpful

[Rushu42]

I don't really have strong opinions on the interludes/ flashbacks (I love them all) but I absolutely think that Rhythm of War had the best epigraphs. @LuckyJim covered most of what I was going to say, but the RoW epigraphs just had so much lore, which I loved. The foreshadowing was sublime, too.